The Holocaust movie addiction continues, this time with a cleverly adapted true story of the largest counterfeiting operation in history. You read right - a truly incredible journey back into the concentration camps of WWII and how a group of men used their wit and talents to survive.
Sally Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics) is a mastermind counterfeiter of the era. He is charming, clever and a genius of various degrees of forgery. After assisting a woman with a passport, Sally awakens the next morning to the intrusion of the police who are prepared and succeed in taking him to prison.
Years later, we have find Sorowitsch going from one concentration camp to another where he uses his artistic knack to preserve his life. The Nazis select he and a group of other skilled workers to be a part of a very secret operation known as 'Project Bernhard'. Its mission is to produce forged banknotes and eventually currency in order to pollute the British and American economies. Some Nazi leaders willingly pamper, so to speak, the 'Bernhard' workers with clean clothes, comfortable beds, showers, and hot meals. A cunning device used by the Nazis to implore their ultimate mission of conquering the rivaling countries.
There is an element of torture that Sally and his comrades endure internally as they work to please the Nazis and preserve hope, but each side of this battle is fought with similar tactics. The prisoners gain access to privileges and information due to their skills and balance deceit as a mode of survival while the Nazis keep the workers at arm's length with hints that the operation is their last hope of prevailing in the second World War.
Magnificent cinematography - with limited dialogue at various parts. The emotional hardship is absorbed as a viewer (which is very difficult to do). For example, the choice to shoot the view of the prisoner as the 'Bernhard' area is surveyed for the first time gave me a sense that I was a prisoner with them. The acting made the story come to life even more. With a film like this it is a risk taken by director Stefan Ruzowitzky to involve limited dialogue at length in certain portions of the film. For me the risk was well worth it because it lets you feel the film and interpret the personality without interference. You narrate it to yourself.
Markovics is almost mechanical with his gestures, yet he masterfully personifies a lifeless man who is hanging onto hope by a string. A beautiful performance with a fantastic closing line - pay attention...4 out of 5!
* Watch the special features as it reveals what happened regarding some of the bank notes discovered not even 10 years ago. It also includes an interview with one of the workers of the project who authored the book that the movies is based on. For years, his claim that this transpired was tauted as a forgery itself. Like I said, incredible story.
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